Adam Sandler has been a box office success for a decade now, with little dip in fortunes since he turned his appearance on TV's Saturday Night Live into a successful film series. From the beginning, Sandler was good at joking about sports, six-pack abs, and the need to stop joking and start being nice to women. He achieved success without any support from critics, many of whom seemed to find the frat-boy element of his style so awful that it inoculated them against its sweet and silly aspects. Sandler is unlikely to care much about the opinions of connoisseur festival-goers, even if he drew attention to their carp with his seamless crossover with Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love (2002). “I wanted to work with Sandler so badly,” Anderson said. “I love it… It always made me laugh.” Sandler's production of Happy Madison is progressing well thanks to its successes; less so when he is executive producing – in a sadistic way – for his friend Rob Schneider (The Hot Chick, 2002, etc.). After a somewhat embarrassing period at the start of the decade (including Little Nicky, 2000 and Mr Deeds, 2002), Sandler re-established himself in the nine-figure box office charts with Anger Management (2003) and 50 First Dates (2004). ); and the director of those two films, Peter Segal, is also at the helm of Sandler's remake of Robert Aldrich's The Longest Yard. Alas, this is Sandler's most formulaic outing to date, the most mechanical script he's ever committed to. Aldrich's 1974 original, with inmates battling their guards in a game of American football, has always been a playground favorite (and was retitled in 2001 as Mean Machine); his cult does not tend to survive adolescence. But in 2005 that still offers the prospect of a decent hearing... middle of paper... g, but Hazen's threats for failure to comply are worse. Crewe befriends the black inmate Caretaker and together they begin looking for large inmates willing, however unqualified, to confront the guards. The training is awkward but Crewe finds a volunteer coach in fellow incarcerated NFL veteran Nate Scarborough, and adds pace. recruiting running back Megget and some initially suspicious black inmates. Hazen's spy Unger kills Caretaker with an incendiary device intended for Crewe. The game is broadcast live, and the Cons begin by exacting physical revenge on the guards, trailing 14-0 before Crewe rallies to level the score at half-time. Hazen threatens to frame Crewe for Caretaker's murder, and Crewe purposely falters as the Guards take a three-touchdown lead. Realizing he must redeem himself, Crewe leads the team to rally and win with a bold final play.